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Why Ask Why?

As children improve their verbal skills, their questions get tougher. The worst of the lot is "Why?" This is a multi-purpose query with a variety of uses, the least of which is actual fact-finding.

As we grow up we never really learn the answers to our questions, we just learn when to stop asking "why." Small children, not having reached this point, will inevitably continue to chip away until the weary parent, depleted of facts and evasions, eventually reverts to the factory default setting of ÍBecause I said so," or its passive-aggressive equivalent, "Just because." So many explanations of everyday phenomena, such as the necessity of brushing teeth, cannot stand up to dogged applications of "Why?" Just like "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire," the first few questions are "gimmes" with pat answers: "Because it's important to clean the food off our teeth," "Because we want our teeth to be clean," and "Because we don't want to get any cavities," being average responses. Further interrogation corners the parent into a grim choice between a digression on the horrors of advanced gum disease and painful dental procedure, or the traditional cop-out of "Because I said so."

Although the "Why?" approach is used in by children in a variety of situations, it is most effective when the subject matter is intangible, and it is therefore not surprising to see it put into play frequently over issues of time and timing. Generally speaking, children have a reversed sense of time; unable to wait for anything beyond an immediate payoff, they are simultaneously impervious to any sense of urgency about something that needs to happen right now.

A child's resistance to temporal constraints and deadlines is intensified by the Parent Factor. In other words, your child is not bothered by the fact that it is time to get in the car, as much as she objects to your saying so, which feeds her suspicion that you are making this all up. By continually asking "Why?" she hopes to force you into admitting that it's all true ð and also to stall for a little time in the meanwhile.

Homedaddy's Tip of the Week is to appoint a common kitchen timer as the Ultimate Time Arbiter. By shifting the burden to an inanimate object, you can head off those pesky "Why?" questions about the nature of time that are better addressed by Stephen J. Hawking, and stick to simple concepts like "Because the buzzer went off."

When the timer goes off, you can shrug your shoulders in the classic "Hey, whattaya gonna do?" gesture that lets her know that even Powerful Parent must answer to a higher authority. By demonstrating that there is no shame in respecting the mandate of the timer, you can playfully let her know that you're all in the same boat, without dwelling on the worrisome fact that you do not know anything more about the workings of the universe than a three-year-old.

Soon enough, she'll connect you with the hand that chooses how many minutes are put on the timer. Until then, time is still on your side.

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© Todd Pinsky 1998-2002. All rights reserved.